In many games, there is a virtual world or some other imagined playing space and a player of the game controls one or more player characters (herein “character,” “player character,” or “PC”). Player characters can be considered in-game representations of the controlling player; as such, all uses of the terms “player,” “user,” “entity,” and “friend” refer to the in-game player character controlled by that player, user, entity, or friend, unless context suggests otherwise. The game display can display a representation of the player character. A game engine accepts inputs from the player, determines player character actions, decides outcomes of events and presents the player with a game display illuminating what happened. In some games, there are multiple players, wherein each player controls one or more player characters.
An electronic social networking system typically operates with a social networking server or servers providing interaction between users such that a user can specify other users of the social networking system as “friends.” As should be apparent, a collection of users and the “friend” connections between users can form a social graph that can be traversed to find second, third and more remote connections between users, much like a graph of nodes connected by edges can be traversed.
In many computer games, there are various types of in-game assets (aka “loot”) that a player character can obtain within the game. For example, a player character may acquire game points, gold coins, experience points, character levels, character attributes, virtual cash, or other in-game items of value. In some games, the goal of the game may be to acquire in-game assets. For example, a player may strive to achieve a high score by accumulating points that are granted for performing in-game tasks or overcoming in-game obstacles. In some games, these in-game assets can used to acquire in-game rewards. For example, a player character may be able to acquire a magical sword (i.e., the reward) in exchange for a number of gold coins (i.e., the assets).